Ten years ago, on 26 July 2012, ECB President Mario Draghi promised in the face of the euro crisis at the time: "Within our mandate, the ECB stands ready to do whatever is necessary to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough." It worked. Since then, "whatever it takes" has determined ECB policy. However, the first half-sentence "within the framework of our mandate" hardly matters any more. In the ten years since then, the European central bank has massively expanded the money supply, bought government bonds on a huge scale, manipulated interest rates downwards and engaged in prohibited monetary state financing. Above all, it thus abolished the steering function of the interest rate and replaced it with the wisdom of...

Sometime between July 21 and July 25, maintenance work on the NordStream 1 gas pipeline is expected to be completed. After that, it will come to a showdown: Will gas flow again or will Putin cut off Germany's supply of Russian gas? To provide guidance in this difficult situation, Bhanu Baweja, Chief Strategist at UBS, discussed with his colleagues the magnitude of the gas problem and the impact on the economy and inflation. To give you, dear readers, some orientation, I would like to share a few figures from UBS research. In earlier estimates, the experts assumed that Europe would consume 497 billion cubic meters of gas in 2022 - Germany alone 79 billion. Of that, 127 billion was expected to come from Russia (Germany normally imports...

  Hopes for a turn for the better in ifo business expectations - the most important economic indicator for us - were dashed in June. After rising twice in April and May, expectations in the manufacturing sector deteriorated again. This means that the prerequisite for a positive trend reversal in the business cycle component of the private-wealth barometer - three consecutive increases - has not been met. The economic signal remains red. From this, we continue to derive a corridor for the recommended equity quota between 45 and 75 percent of the individually intended equity share. Within this range, we are guided by the results of the capital market seismograph. Since the latter has long advised maximum defensiveness, the current...

Real estate is considered a safe haven - especially in times of inflation. And indeed, experts from the industry do not see any significant risks for price development due to the rise in mortgage rates. The demand for housing is still high, they say, the increased construction prices make existing housing more attractive and even now the financing conditions are historically favourable. In the worst case, they expect a sideways trend in property prices. Interestingly, while the housing market is supposed to be stable, the shares of German listed real estate companies are trading 40 to 60 percent below their highs.A particularly striking case is Deutsche Wohnen. It owns more than 140,000 residential and commercial units. At the end...

Once again, the Seismograph underlined how valuable it is for investors. Since 3 May, the Secaro Gmbh model has been advising maximum caution. At the time, Secaro managing director Oliver Schlick informed us: "All input factors just caused a significant increase in the probability of negative turbulence. The dynamics are so strong that the rules of the model call for a clear change in the equity quota. The recommendation of the approach is now to be strongly defensive and maximally cautious."   With this news, the capital market seismograph ensured that the private-wealth stock market indicator, which had already been positioned defensively since 29 February, reduced the equity allocation even further. Since then, it has amounted...